


Day 29: The Princess and the Frog

by ofplanet_earth



Series: 30 days of Barduil [29]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Biology, Dissection, Lab Partners, Loner Bard, M/M, Popular Kid Thranduil, Science Teacher Gandalf, Thranduil with a man bun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5312126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofplanet_earth/pseuds/ofplanet_earth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Greyhame always assigns the worst lab partners. But you know what they say— opposites attract.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 29: The Princess and the Frog

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous requested a high school AU!
> 
> I didn't even attempt to make this one british. I can barely remember what my own anatomy labs were like and I've got limited time today. so no research: just writing.  
> okay, some research. but minimal. 
> 
> please note that I've turned off my embarrassment sensors. I just went for all the high school tropes: the bad boy and the popular kid, the reluctant lab partners, love of Nirvana (do kids in high school listen to Nirvana these days? god, I feel old), thinking your parents are terrible. all of it. I'm not even ashamed. this story was begging to be written and I finally found a suitable plot! 
> 
> one more day, guys!

“Thorin and Bilbo. Dwalin, you’re with Feren. And last but certainly not least, Bard and Thranduil. These will be your dissection lab partners for the remainder of the term.” A chorus of groans echoed around the classroom, Bard’s voice among them; Mr. Greyhame had a talent for assigning the _worst_ lab partners in all his classes. Thranduil was… how could Bard put this politely? He was a prick. A spoiled rotten diva with an attitude and a trust fund. He was in the _in crowd_ and they all hated Bard. 

He sank lower in his seat as Mr. Greyhame outlined the project. Thranduil had turned around and was glaring at him, as though _he_ was the one who’d made them lab partners. 

Yeah. Right. 

“We have gone over the procedure of the dissection, safety protocols, and the outlines for your reports. We begin today with the bovine eye. Please find your partner, claim a workstation and begin.” 

Bard sighed. He leaned forward at his desk and ran his hands through his hair. Thranduil walked past him towards the back of the room. “Come on, loser. Let’s get this over with.” Bard sighed and groaned again before finally standing up and following Thranduil to the worktable.

 Cow eyes were surprisingly difficult to cut open, and nearly impossible to cut open neatly. Thranduil watched Bard struggle to hold the eye still and make a cross section for a whole thirty seconds before he’d pushed Bard out of the way and grabbed the scalpel from his hand. “Hey!” Bard said. “Watch it, prissy pants! You nearly sliced my hand open!” 

“If only my aim were a little better.” Thranduil rolled his eyes before turning his attention to the eyeball on the dissection tray. He proceeded to make a complete ass of himself, trying to do a better job than Bard had and failing miserably. 

Bard didn’t even try to keep the smirk off his face.

“Now remove all the vitreous fluid from the eye and locate the lens.” Mr. Greyhame walked between the rows of lab tables, observing bickering partners and scolding the idiots who were waving their scalpels around like swords. “On page two of your information packets, you will find an empty box. If you hold the lens over the box, you should be able to see a letter on the paper. An additional ten points will be given to those of you who can read it.” 

Thranduil scooped the jelly from inside the eyeball, cringing dramatically as he did so despite the fact that he was wearing two pairs of vinyl gloves. Bard rolled his eyes. He watched as his partner cleaned off the lens with saline and leaned down to squint at the empty box through the cow lens. “You know, I can go sit down if you’re going to do all the work yourself.” 

“You wish. Just take notes, Bowman.” 

“Whatever. But you do know your hair is sitting in vitreous fluid, don’t you?” 

Thranduil was silent for a moment, glaring at Bard like he didn’t believe him. Then he looked down. “ _Oh my god,_ ” 

Bard laughed as he ran from the room, peeling off his double-layered gloves and throwing them at the nearest trash can (and missing). He picked up the lens where Thranduil had left it. A tiny lower case “e” was barely visible on the paper. 

That was actually pretty cool. 

“Mr. Bowman, are you comfortable continuing by yourself while Mr. Oropherion regains his composure?” 

“Yeah,” Bard laughed. 

“Excellent. Now locate the retina— the vascular membrane lining the posterior chamber of the eye. You should be able to peel it back and detach it completely.”

Bard continued to work for the next fifteen minutes, vaguely wondering if Thranduil had gone home or puked. But then he walked back into the classroom, a scowl on his face and his long blond hair pulled into a damp bun. 

“Finished getting ready, princess?” 

“Fuck off, loser. I might never get the smell of formaldehyde out of my hair.” 

“Maybe you should just take notes for a while,” Bard smirked. 

✥

Okay. Maybe Thranduil wasn’t the _worst_ lab partner in the world. Bard could’ve had it worse. He could have been paired with Kíli, who did nothing besides dick around with his brother and stare at Tauriel (who was, in Bard’s objective and honest opinion, way out of his league). Thranduil showed up to class on the second day of dissections with his hair already pulled back into a bun and his dark eyebrows set into a frown. He picked up their eyeball and begun peeling back the cornea without a single word. 

The next few weeks weren’t much different. Thranduil would snatch the scalpel and forceps from Bard’s hands. Bard would make a comment about frog guts getting smeared on Thranduil’s sleeve just to distract him so that he could steal them back. He asked Mr. Greyhame if they could have a second frog and set of instruments— Thranduil even agreed with him— but the teacher only glared at them and told them to get back to work. 

But if Bard thought Thranduil was a terrible lab partner, he could only imagine what working on their final report would be like. He drove to Thranduil’s house (his highness apparently couldn’t stand to go near the north end of town where Bard lived) and rang the doorbell. It took a minute for Thranduil to come to the door, but the guy practically lived in a mansion. Bard’s house could have fit inside three times, and he wasn’t exaggerating.

Thranduil answered the door with a sneer and the beginnings of an insult on the tip of his tongue. Instead he froze, his eyes caught on something over Bard’s shoulder and said, “Is… is that yours?” 

“Yeah,” Bard turned to look at his motorcycle on the gravel (quartz gravel— honestly, was this family made of money?). He couldn’t help the smile that sprung to his lips. The weather was nice and he’d driven the long way around town just to feel the wind in his face as he rode. He was still coming down from the adrenaline rush. “It was my dad’s years ago. I fixed it up over the summer.” 

Bard turned back to Thranduil to see a bright blush on his pale face. “That’s… uh…” he cleared his throat and walked away abruptly, leaving the door open and calling over his shoulder, “Come on, let’s get this over with.” Bard followed him inside, peeling off his leather jacket as he went. They ended up in what Bard could only assume was Thranduil’s room, but it wasn’t anything like what he’d expected. 

He expected lots of hair products and designer jeans thrown across the floor. He half expected pink satin pillows, but instead he found walls littered with posters and a vintage record collection. “Whoa,”

“What?” Thranduil stood at the foot of the bed (grey, not pink). He had his bottom lip between his teeth and he was picking at the skin around his fingers. If Bard didn’t know any better, he’d think Thranduil was nervous. Self-conscious, even. 

“Nothing it’s just that… I so didn’t see you as a Guns ’n Roses fan.” Bard crossed the room to peek at the records on the shelf. “And— holy shit, is this a signed copy of In Utero?” 

“Yeah,” 

“Holy shit,” Bard felt like he was holding the holy grail of music. “How did you even get this?” Bard knelt in front of the bookcase, totally forgetting that this was _Thranduil’s_ house and that he was geeking out over _Thranduil’s_ taste in music. 

“Dad’s money can buy a lot,” he shrugged. “But that’s not their best album.” Thranduil sat beside Bard and pulled another record from the shelf.

“No way, it’s definitely—“

“Nevermind.”

“Yes!” He took the album gently from Thranduil’s hands, looking it over in awe. 

“Come on,” Thranduil tipped his head towards the backpack lying open on the carpet. “We can listen after we get this report started.” 

Bard still clutched the Nirvana album, writing a lab report suddenly even further down on the list of things he wanted to do. Right above getting a root canal. “Or we could listen to it while we work?” He clutched the album to his chest and gave his best puppy dog pout. 

Surprisingly, it worked. Thranduil smiled— actually smiled _at Bard_ — and stood to put the record on. Smells Like Teen Spirit began to play in all its vinyl glory and Bard nodded his head along with the music. 

They actually got a surprising amount of work done in between impromptu karaoke and air guitar. The first side of the record had nearly finished when a shadow appeared in the doorway and a voice shouted over the music. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Dad!” Thranduil scrambled to his feet and snatched the needle off the record. Bard had been mid-way through a killer guitar solo. His fingers still picked at invisible strings and his mouth hung open as he looked up at Thranduil’s father. 

He could see where he got his looks. 

Not his looks as in _his looks_ — he wasn’t hitting on Thranduil’s dad or anything— they just looked really similar was all. Family resemblance and… oh, whatever.

“We were working on our anatomy lab report. Sorry. We’ll keep the noise down.”

 “I expect you will. Don’t forget we’re having company for dinner tonight.” 

“Yeah dad,” Thranduil sighed and turned back to the notebook in his lap. 

“Wow,” Bard said only after he heard a door close down the hallway. “Your dad’s kind of harsh.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it.” 

They went back to their lab report without music, but that didn’t stop Bard from humming Stay Away as he worked. Thranduil shushed him, but he was smiling when Bard looked up from his work.

✥

Two hours later, they both stood in Thranduil’s driveway. “You really fixed this yourself?” Thranduil ran a hand over the curve of the gas tank. 

“Yeah,” Bard gripped the handlebar affectionately. “My dad’s a mechanic. I spent most of my summers in his garage as a kid.”

“That’s pretty cool.” 

“Yeah, I guess it is.” 

“Maybe um,” Thranduil kicked at the gravel beneath his shoes. “Maybe sometime you could let me ride it?” 

“You want to drive it? Are you crazy?” 

“No, you’re right, it’s a bad idea. Sorry.” 

Bard smirked. “You’re not going soft on me, are you princess?”

“Not a chance, asshat.” He crossed his arms over his chest but he mirrored Bard’s smirk. 

“Good. You had me a little worried for a minute there.” Bard swung his leg up and sat on the motorcycle, kicking up the stand and starting the engine. “Maybe tomorrow we can work on our report at my house? I don’t have a record player, but my parents are usually working all afternoon.” 

Thranduil seemed to think about it for a minute, his teeth worrying at the insides of his lips before he agreed, “Alright.” 

“Great,” Bard smirked. “I’ll bring my bike. Maybe give you a ride.” He revved the engine and drove off, but not before catching sight of the furious blush that had risen on Thranduil’s cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to go ahead and say the request box is closed. I have tomorrow's story picked out and there are still prompts I didn't get to! I do plan on continuing the Muses AU as well as writing a continuation of Discontent/Two Chairs, I'm With the Band, and of course the Long Road series, so I'll use some of the prompts there. 
> 
> I like to tag [inspiration](http://www.ofplanet-earth.tumblr.com/tagged/30-days-of-barduil).  
> you can keep track of my word count on my [novel page](http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ofplanet-earth/novels/30-days-of-barduil) or on my [tumblr](http://www.ofplanet-earth.tumblr.com/tagged/nanowrimo).


End file.
